Death Row Records To Be Sold

HipHopDX is reporting that WIDEawake Death Row and its catalog is being sold to a publicly held company. Former Death Row publicist Jonathan Hay, New Solutions Financial Corp., the Canadian company that owns WIDEawake Death Row, has gone bankrupt and the sale of the label and its catalog is set to be closed on December 10th.

Hays complains that there was discontent with the decisions of the staff at WIDEawake Death Row.

A full statement is below:

“New Solutions Financial Corp., the Canadian umbrella company that currently owns WIDEawake Death Row, is bankrupt. The historical record label and catalog is being sold to a publicly held company. Being on the inside, we are hearing that the deal will be closed on December 10th. Honestly, we are not surprised by the bankruptcy as we have been actively involved with eight of the Death Row Records’ releases over the last four years and have seen the problems firsthand. Time and time again we tried to use our influence to get new mixing and mastering for these re-releases because we knew the albums sounded piss-poor from a sonic standpoint. Even though we helped put together a lot of the artwork over the years, we were never happy with the end result and how it looked, as most of our visual ideas weren’t executed as we requested. We wanted every Death Row release to look and feel like a box set with the highest quality of work because we felt that every project deserved that kind of treatment. Most of our ideas for publicity and marketing were shot down, even though we were paid to do the job. Over the years, we have argued, fussed, kicked and screamed with the staff of WIDEawake Death Row over the decisions being made, all across the board. In my opinion, the fatal problem of the company was the inexperience of the people involved, who at times seemed to prideful to accept direction. It was around this time last year that we had Snoop Dogg, with the help of Big Holis, willing to sit down with WIDEawake to discuss the possibility of becoming the face of Death Row Records again. As exciting as this could have been, WIDEawake rejected the idea. With this new company taking over Death Row, hopefully some of our ideas will finally be implemented to help preserve the Death Row Records catalog and legacy. As far as our own distribution deal through WIDEawake Death Row and eOne, we will speaking with everyone about this transition after the holidays.”